


To Hear it Even Once

by Rin_the_Shadow



Series: In Your Own Words [4]
Category: Dororo (Anime 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dororo is a good bro, Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Semiverbal Character, So there you go, Tahomaru is a good bro, a little heavier on the hurt than my normal serving, allusions to events of episode 4, also episodes 5 and 6, and anime club would probably require a content warning, but still decently heavy on the comfort, nothing graphic but the references are there, takes place between episodes 12 and 15, who occasionally doesn't get things quite right but he tries, yeet me into the face of canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 19:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18998764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rin_the_Shadow/pseuds/Rin_the_Shadow
Summary: It hadn't been a bad day. At least, they had no reason to think it had been. So of course, that's the day everything that's happened before decides to come crashing down.





	To Hear it Even Once

It hadn’t been a bad day. At least, they had no reason to think it had been. They had managed to find good shelter. Before that, Hyakkimaru had made it through a village without his cloth to muffle his ears, (not that it hadn’t been available for him). And Dororo hadn’t kicked Tahomaru over any of the things they normally argued about (though Dororo insisted that had only been once or twice, and besides, he’d been _trying_ to piss him off, anyway).

And yet, as he sat down to rest, Hyakkimaru couldn’t block out the shouts of Daigo’s voice accusing him, “ _You half-born demon child!_ ” and his and Tahomaru’s mother, crying out, “ _I cannot save you!_ ”

Half-born. He hadn’t even understood what that meant at the time, but it _hurt_. And it hurt even more now that he understood what it meant. Half-born meant not a human. Meant _less_. Meant it was okay to hurt you and take anything from you, and you weren’t allowed to get upset over it. Meant if you got upset, _you_ were wrong.

Demon, he already knew was bad. Demons took and ate and didn’t care what else happened just as long as they got what they wanted. They chased and bit and it didn’t matter if you bothered them or left them alone. If they wanted, they took. He’d ignored everything else when he’d hunted that big one in the sand hole. Mio had died because of it. The children had died because of it. He’d killed most of the samurai responsible and then lunged for the last one. Did that make him a demon?

But Dororo had said he wasn’t a demon. Dororo stayed with him and helped him. Dororo wouldn’t stay with him if he was a demon, right? That other soul had saved him from at least two demons. He wouldn’t have done that if he was the same as them, right? Then again, he’d also said something like, “We’ll have to watch that one” before. Hyakkimaru still wasn’t sure just what he meant by that, but maybe… No. If it was wrong to want his body back, his mom would have stopped him after that first one. He would never have learned how to defend himself against them. No. Before that. He wouldn’t even have fought off the ones that attacked him as a child. He wouldn't have cared for him and given him a body if he was a demon. That was true, wasn’t it?

 _“You, who threaten the peace of this land, are a demon to us now,”_ Tahomaru had declared that day. But Tahomaru didn’t think that anymore, did he? He wouldn’t have come with them and stayed with them and let Hyakkimaru touch his face if he still thought that, would he? A demon couldn't comfort anyone, but he had done so for both his brothers at separate points.

Was it even possible for something that wasn’t a demon to become one? He supposed so. That soul carrying the sword demon had been completely white at first, but then the red from the sword had crawled up their arms and over their body until their entire aura had turned a deep, ugly red. And sometimes, when he looked very carefully, he could see flecks of red in his leg. Was the rest of him like that, too? Or was it worse?

He didn’t know why it bothered him so much today. It wasn’t like it was the first time something like that had happened—even before he could hear, there had been times Dororo’s aura would flare with protective anger and he’d plant himself between them, arms gesturing wildly until he would turn and grab Hyakkimaru’s prosthetic hand, dragging him away. It wasn’t even his first time _hearing_ something like that, “He’s got swords for hands! Is he even human? And what’s with those creepy eyes?” So he really didn’t know why it suddenly mattered _now_.

The sounds were just memories, but he couldn’t stop them repeating in his head. _“You half-born demon child!”_

So why did it matter what he thought? He already had a perfectly good mama who didn’t think that, so _why did it matter_ if the man who fed him to the demons thought otherwise?

_“You half-born demon child!”_

His hands crept up to cover his ears, even though he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Hands could only block out sounds that came from outside. Screaming would only make things worse.

_“You half-born demon child!”_

No. Not half-born. Not a demon. _Not a demon_. He could take much worse. He _had_ taken much worse, so why was this hurting him so much _now?_

* * *

“I don’t think we should go any farther today,” Dororo had said. He hadn’t been able to explain why, just a feeling that they should stop. Neither of the brothers had argued. It was perfectly good shelter, and there was no reason to risk not having one for the night.

He had announced a few minutes later that he was going to find food, and he didn’t want his big bro left alone right now, but he was worried that if he knew what Dororo was doing, he might try to go hunt some fish or something to help him. “I just think bro needs a break right now,” he’d said when Tahomaru had asked why.

And so he’d left Tahomaru with strict instructions not to let Hyakkimaru go wandering off or try to hunt anything. Actually, his exact words had been something along the lines of, “Tackle him to the ground and sit on him if you have to,” along with several highly creative threats he wished Hyogo could have heard but dreaded Mutsu learning and using. Though he had to wonder just  _when_ he'd started taking orders from an eight-year-old.

It hadn’t exactly been eventful up until that point, which made him wonder what Dororo was dreading so much. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit it gnawed at him, too.

“What do you think, elder brother? Is there anything—” The rest of his question died in his throat as he turned and saw his brother curling his knees to his chest and clamping his hands over his ears in an all-too-familiar gesture.

Tahomaru felt his blood run cold. This had never been his area of expertise. Certainly, he had been able to help in the past, but then, he had always followed Dororo’s lead. If Hyakkimaru wasn’t in a state to talk, he didn’t know just how useful _he_ would be, and he spared a frantic glance around them, hoping against hope that the little twerp would come trotting up, that he’d forgotten something and come back for it.

Of course, he couldn’t expect that kind of luck. Taking a breath, he walked himself through what to do. Don’t touch his arms, don’t talk too loudly, or more than you have to. Touch was good, but if he pulled away, he should let him.

As he approached, he heard a quiet mumbling, almost like a chant repeated over and over. He’d figured out pretty quickly the sound was coming from his brother, but when he got close enough to make out the words, his heart sank.

“Not a demon,” he said, to no one in particular. “Not a demon. Not a demon.”

Wonderful. The _one_ thing he’d probably directly contributed to would be the issue he’d end up having the _one_ time Dororo wasn’t there to help. Worse, the mantra was making his own nerves flicker and spark, and he almost wanted to curl into a ball right next to him.

“Not a demon. Not a demon.” He was getting more and more frantic. If he didn’t do something soon—he wasn’t sure just _what_ might happen, but he was certain he didn’t want to find out. “ _Not a demon._ ”

But if there was one thing Tahomaru hated, it was feeling helpless and weak. And he’d had quite enough of that lately. He swallowed, forcing his hands to still themselves as he reached for his brother’s back, squeezing with both arms the way he’d seen Dororo do.

There was no missing the sharp flinch he got in response. “Not a demon. Not a demon. Not a demon.”

Well, at least he wasn’t shaking or rocking. That meant he had to be doing something right. On the other hand, aside from the initial flinch, Hyakkimaru didn’t even seem to notice he was there, as he had no response to the hands on his back, whether he squeezed his shoulders or rubbed circular patterns along the spine. Even squirming away or shoving him back would have been better than this!

“Not a demon. Not a demon.”

He had one option left. It wasn’t ideal, and of course, Dororo had said not to speak more than he had to. But if this _wasn’t_ a situation where he had to…

“Hyakkimaru,” he spoke, hoping he sounded firmer than he felt. “Do you know where you are? Do you know who I am?”

“…Not a demon. Not a demon.” There was something. It was only a split-second hesitation, but it was more than he’d gotten up until that point.

“Did someone call you—” He paused. No. If anyone had said anything like that when they’d crossed through the village, he was certain he would have noticed. Besides, asking probably wouldn’t do any good at this point.

Still, he’d responded. It wasn’t much, but he’d responded. Some small part of Tahomaru’s brain had somehow managed not to fry itself, and it latched onto that response. If he was wrong, he could only hope Dororo would come back before the situation was completely unsalvageable.

As if in preemptive apology, he squeezed just a little tighter, running a hand down his brother’s strange spine once more, and then pulling away. Hyakkimaru almost jumped at the sudden withdrawal, repeating “Not a demon” even faster than before.

Tahomaru winced. Of course he didn’t know he wasn’t simply giving up. At the same time, it was another response, which he hoped was a good sign. He took a breath, and then reached towards his brother’s face. “Hyakkimaru, look at me,” he said. “I know you can’t see, but look at my aura. You see that, right?”

This went about as well as he expected. Hyakkimaru, probably thinking he was going to take his hands away, gave a violent flinch, turning his head to try to avoid him. Instead of pulling back, Tahomaru followed him this time, struggling to keep his voice even. “No, it’s okay, I know what you’re expecting but—damn it, Hyakkimaru, _look at me_!” He snapped, catching his face in both hands.

Well, _now_ he was shaking, feeling his brother pushing his fingers up under his own, mantra near frantic as he gasped in shallow breaths. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to take them away.” Tahomaru forced his voice level, finally managing to wedge his fingers over his ears. “See? It’s okay.”

He was still shaking, trembling just the slightest bit as he tilted his forehead down, allowing his brother to bring them together. “Not a demon. Nnot a demon.” At least now he understood what he had been trying to do.

“You’re not a demon.” Tahomaru answered, feeling like it was the first thing he’d said right in this entire conversation. “Do you understand me? You’re not a demon.”

And he wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt _something_ shudder through him. “Not a demon.”

“You’re not a demon.”

For a second, he thought it would be enough. But then, Hyakkimaru swallowed. “Not a demon.”

“You’re not a demon.” Why couldn’t he just understand that?

“Not a demon.”

Was he expecting the answer to change? “You’re not a demon,” he said, forcing his voice to remain even.

“Not a demon,” he repeated, and Tahomaru felt wooden fingers beginning to run back and forth where his hands clasped over his ears. Was he trying to soothe himself, or let him know he heard him?

“You’re not a demon.”

This time, there was something different. Hyakkimaru’s chest heaved and he closed his eyes, clenching his teeth for several breaths before forcing out, “Nnot a d-demon.”

“You’re not a demon.” Whatever was happening, this was fine. As many times as he needed to hear it, he would repeat it. After all, it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have done the same for him.

* * *

Dororo scampered up the “path,” berries and herbs and several different kinds of bugs wrapped tight inside his cloth bag. It had been a pretty good find, nerves aside, and he had to chuckle at the faces Tahomaru was bound to make over eating bugs.

When he reached their shelter, though, he nearly dropped the food. His brothers were crouched down foreheads close together, Tahomaru’s hands over Hyakkimaru’s ears. Their mouths were moving, but he couldn’t quite make out just what they were saying.

Oh. He’d had a bad feeling, but he had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. He crept a little closer, inching along as slow as he could without being too conspicuous. If Tahomaru saw him coming, he might try to turn the situation over to him. This wasn’t the way he would have wanted it, but he needed to learn how to do this himself eventually. Just in case they ever got separated and something like this happened where Dororo couldn’t get to him. He’d step in if it looked like he couldn’t handle it, but from where he was standing, it looked like they were riding out the last of it.

Only when Hyakkimaru’s hands fell away and Tahomaru pulled him in for a hug did Dororo approach the scene. “Hey,” he spoke quietly. “I got some food. Is everything okay?”

Tahomaru glanced up in acknowledgment, mouth pressed in a tight line as he ran his hand in a wide circle over his brother’s back. A moment later, Hyakkimaru turned just enough to face him, though his long bangs still hid his expression from view. “I’m not a demon,” he said sullenly.

For a split second, Dororo wasn’t sure whether to laugh or panic, so he took a breath and let it out as a sigh. “Of course you’re not, bro.” He shifted the cloth in his hands. “I brought some food, if anyone feels like eating.”

Their meal was a quiet one. Tahomaru had only slightly grimaced at the offered bugs before taking one and silently choking it down, and then following it with some of the herbs, though he probably would have made a bigger show of it if today had happened differently. Hyakkimaru chewed absently, never quite leaving his position slumped against Tahomaru, but at least taking whatever food Dororo offered instead of pushing it back.

They managed to persuade Hyakkimaru to rest a bit afterwards, quietly assuring him that everything would be fine when he woke up, and then closing his eyes when he drifted off without remembering to do so himself. They’d had a rough afternoon. Dororo could make some allowances.

Once they were outside of the tiny shelter, Tahomaru turned to him. “How much of that were you there for?”

Dororo shrugged. It wasn’t like he had any reason to hide it. “Looked like the end of it. You were sitting together, saying something. Then you hugged. That’s all.”

“Hm.” Even with his disguise, in that moment, he fully looked the young samurai lord, pursing his lips as though thinking of a battle strategy.

When the moment passed and he didn’t say anything else, Dororo continued. “Any idea what set him off?” He’d told him he wasn’t a demon, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t guess, but there might have been more to it.

Unfortunately, it seemed Tahomaru didn’t know any more than he did. “When I noticed, he was covering his ears and kept saying ‘not a demon.’ I don’t know what made him think it, if anyone said anything, or…”

“He remembers things, sometimes,” Dororo mused, chewing at the inside of his mouth.

“Then it could be anything, really. I started to ask earlier, but at the time…” Tahomaru scowled, cursing himself for whatever mistakes he thought he’d made bringing his brother back down.

Dororo started to reach for him, then thought better of it. “From what I saw, you didn’t do too bad.” He resisted the urge to point out the number of times before that when he’d sought to comfort his _elder brother_ , only to have big bro wind up comforting him instead. For one thing, he’d insist it hadn’t happened _that_ often, but aside from that, even Dororo could figure out he wasn’t supposed to know about it.

An agitated hand ran through his hair and Tahomaru scoffed. “Tch. You didn’t see most of it.”

The smaller boy bit down on his lip to hold back the pout that was threatening to come out. It wasn't like he'd said he'd done it perfectly. Really, was it that hard to just take some praise? “I’ll have you know I saw more than enough. The fact that I didn’t have to come running to your rescue should be good enough!”

A part of him expected him to argue back. To his surprise, he simply turned his gaze back towards the shelter. “If that’s all, then we should go back.”

Dororo nodded. “Yeah.” It probably wasn’t good to leave Hyakkimaru alone for too long right now, he thought as he grabbed Tahomaru’s hand and nearly dragged him back inside.

Hyakkimaru stirred as they crawled inside, and they hoped and prayed to anything that might listen that he hadn’t been awake the whole time and heard them. But he didn’t turn and scowl at them, only drowsily holding out a hand to let Dororo curl underneath it before curling around him. And if Dororo was a little older, he might have tried just a little harder not to let Tahomaru see him nestling into his bro, but dammit, he was eight, and he was allowed to be a child when he wasn’t minding _them_ all the time.

Besides, it wasn’t like Tahomaru wasn’t doing the same thing at his other side. It hadn’t been a bad day overall, but there had been some rough patches. They were allowed to have a little break.

**Author's Note:**

> So I actually started this around the same time as I started chapter three of "It Goes Bump in the Night," and it was one of the ideas I had to narrow down from. Most of the others were distilled into short notes within the narration, but this one, I decided to split off into its own fic. A decent part of this was written during the breaks in my summer class, though the last section was written after it got out. I'm a little surprised it took me so long to get the concept translated into words and phrases with something resembling a narrative flow, since I've had this idea in concept form pretty much since I saw episode 15 and wrote "A Different Kind of Battlefield."
> 
> So I suppose what I'm trying to say is it's only by sheer coincidence that I happened to post it the day after episode 20 aired, but at the same time, I'm not opposed to taking those episodes as a personal challenge to hurtle myself into the face of canon with all the force I can muster. 
> 
> Something I had forgotten to mention when I first posted this was that Tanosuke's slowly being taken over by Nihil as described in Hyakkimaru's narration is something that I pulled from the game adaptation, "Blood Will Tell." Your early fights with Tanosuke are "nonlethal battles," but in your final fight, Hyakkimaru switches to using his sword arms, and it's stated that Tanosuke has become a Fiend himself. I thought this was implied in the 2019 anime, since he originally disarms him without killing him, and even when he does kill him in their final fight, he still disarms Dororo without killing him almost immediately before, so I kept it here.
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin


End file.
